Don't Tell Sam
by ImJustWingingThis
Summary: For once, everything was good in the Winchesters' lives, until it all came crumbling down.
1. Don't Tell Sam

(Y/N) had been with the boys since practically the beginning. She first met Sam Winchester when he was running around hopped up on demon blood and she put him in his place. When Dean came back though, she started occasionally joining them on hunts. A few here and a few there until it became an everyday thing. She eventually became part of their small little family.

Dean really took to her, always combating her sass with his not-so-witty comebacks. He thought of her as his little sister, always looking after her even when they bickered. Sam however saw her in a much different light. Apparently it was a surprise only to the couple, when he proposed. (Y/N) had just finished hacking off the head of a vampire when Sam realized he couldn't live without her. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was pulling her to him. He rested his forehead against hers and whispered, "Marry me", and she said yes in a heartbeat.

Six months later though, things changed. One day, (Y/N) just retreated into herself. She no longer brought the energy and laughter into the room when she entered. She no longer had witty remarks towards Dean when he said something stupid. Instead of sitting around the kitchen drinking beers with the boys, Sam now found her drinking the good bourbon while secluded on the metal stairs that lead inside the bunker. She even stopped sleeping in their shared room, leaving the sheets cold on her side when Sam woke up.

Sam tried talking to her, so did Dean, but she would just brush it off to stress or insomnia. She knew she couldn't hold them off forever, so she made her decision. Sam had taken off on a supply run, leaving her and Dean alone in the bunker. (Y/N) found him sitting on the bed in his room, drinking a beer and looking over a potential case.

She gently knocked on the door frame before clearing her throat. "Ah, so she finally speaks!" Dean replied without looking up from his computer.

In a small voice (Y/N) asked, "Can I come in?" Dean simply waved his arm over an empty spot on the bed. (Y/N) crossed the room and sat down on the edge instead of curling up in the center like she used to do. "We need to talk, Dean."

"What do you think Sammy and I have been trying to do for the past month," he questioned, "talking to oursel-".

"I'm sick, Dean."

"Text Sam, he'll pick you up some tissues."

"Not that kind of sick."

That made Dean finally look up from his computer. He looked at (Y/N), really looked at her and finally saw her. Her eyes weren't as bright as they normally were, and her skin was paler. Her nails were bitten to the bed and her hair was flat and a little on the grungy side. Dean would say she looked like Hell, but with Crowley there he had dressed it up a little nicer.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, worry and concern evident in his face. (Y/N) hesitated for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts.

"Well, remember that werewolf hunt back in June were I got thrown into the brick fireplace?" (Y/N) asked. Dean nodded his head, questioning where this was going. "Well ever since then, I was getting these really bad headaches, like crippling, stabbing, crying my eyes out headaches, and I didn't want to worry you or Sam, and I normally just deal with it, but it was so bad and I knew something was wrong and -."

"(Y/N)! Spit it out!" Dean yelled, pulling from her from her rambling. (Y/N) took a deep breath to calm herself before letting it out in defeat.

"It's a tumor," She finally let out. Dean just sat there in disbelief. "It's right here," (Y/N) pointed between her right ear and temple, "in the medial section of my right temporal lobe and it's pressing against my limbic system."

Dean just stared at her, not quite sure what he was hearing, "What does that mean?"

"It means I'm going to die."

That was not an answer Dean was expecting, let alone okay with, but before he could fight her on it, he suddenly remembered his brother. "Why are you telling me this and not Sam?" She remained silent, staring at her hands and playing with her engagement ring. "(Y/N)? Why didn't you tell him?" She just looked up at him with watery eyes and Dean finally realized she wasn't going to tell him.

"(Y/N) you have to tell him," Dean pleaded, "He deserves to know what you two are up against."

"No, Dean, it's what I'm up against" (Y/N) said in a quiet voice.

Dean finally noticed the duffle bag sitting in the hall across from his open door and it hit him, "You're leaving, aren't you?" The way he said it broke both of their hearts.

"This was never the way I thought I would go out of this world," (Y/N) said, "but you two don't need to go through it with me. I'm going to keep hunting till I can't anymore and then I'm going to do what I have to do."

Dean knew immediately what she meant and he cringed at her words. "No, you're not leaving, this isn't how you go and you're going to fight this," Dean all but begged. "There are treatment options, we can figure out a way, Cas can heal you!"

"You mean the angel that has no wings?! Like that's going to work! And for treatment options, I'm not going to sit down and let myself rot. I was born a hunter and I'm going to die a hunter." There was no use, (Y/N) had made up her mind.

"Do you know what the limbic system does, Dean?" He just looked at her like a confused, injured animal. "It does a lot, but one of the major things it deals with is memory. It's going to start out as headaches, and then it's going to grow to nosebleeds as it raises my blood pressure. As it continues to grow, it's going to press up against my limbic system until it starts to cut off blood flow and the system starts to die. First I'll begin to lose my train of thought, or forget what I was supposed to be doing when I walk into a room, and eventually I'll forget my own name. I'm going to turn into a mess of a person until other parts of my brain shut down, killing off my kidneys and my liver and my lungs until I suffocate to death and then it will stop my heart. Now tell me that's something you want to be there to watch?!"

Dean now had tears streaming down his face. The girl he thought of as a sister was dying in one of the most painful ways, and there was nothing he could do. After some time, he found his voice again, "What do you want me to do?"

(Y/N) was playing with her ring again, avoiding the question. She spun it over and over and over again before suddenly stopping. Her fingers hovered over the thin metal before slowly sliding it off and handing it to Dean. "Don't tell Sam. It will be easier if he thinks I left him and he hates me." (Y/N) pulled a sealed envelope with Sam's name on it out of her back pocket as she stood up and handed it over.

Dean followed her motions and stood up to grab her and embrace her in what could quite possibly be their last embrace. He held her to his chest and they cried together until she eventually pulled away, picked up her bag, and left the bunker.

—

When Sam returned with the week's supplies, he found his brother at the kitchen table three quarters of the way done with a bottle of his favorite whiskey. "Hey, where's (Y/N)?" Sam asked, but he was only answered with a motion towards the envelope and ring that sat on the island counter top in the center of the kitchen.


	2. Don't Look for Me

The weeks following (Y/N)'s disappearance were quiet. Dean went on lockdown, barely speaking to Sam and leaving a trail of empty liquor bottles in his wake. (Y/N) didn't really give him a timeline on how long she had which left Dean constantly staring at his phone like it was a grenade, ready to explode at any time. He was just waiting for the call that his little sister was taking her last breath.

Sam however went into hyper drive. He read the letter (Y/N) left him, hell, he read it a thousand times. The phrases ' _we rushed into this_ ' and ' _I'm not happy here'_ were branded into his mind. But the line that hit him the hardest? _"I'm just not in love with you anymore"._ He didn't believe it, not because he was in denial, simply because it wasn't believable. The only way Sam would accept their fate is if he heard it straight from (Y/N)'s mouth.

He buried himself in searching for her, tracking every alias, credit card, all the way down to what cars she had a habit for stealing. Sam searched high and low for his (Y/N), staying up for days at a time, just staring at his laptop waiting for something to change.

Nothing ever did.

— —

Dean finally woke up one morning, like really woke up. It was the first morning he didn't wash out the taste of stale beer from the night before with the whiskey he kept on the nightstand. For some odd reason it hit him, this isn't what (Y/N) would have wanted. The whole reason why she left was to prevent this. Dean couldn't sit and wait for that phone call and he couldn't let his lovesick brother get lost chasing a girl who didn't want to be found.

He walking into the library to find Sam in his usual position, in front of his laptop sipping on a cup of coffee. Considering the coffee pot was almost empty, Sam had been up for a considerable amount of time before Dean. He ignored the evidence though and poured himself the remaining cup before rejoining his brother in the library. As he approached the table, Dean threw the folder down next to the laptop, sending a ricocheting slap though the dense silence that had plagued the bunker for the past two months. Sam didn't even flinch, let alone look up from the screen.

"What's that?" Sam asked, speaking for the first time in forever.

Dean took a swig from his coffee mug, "It's a case, Sammy-boy! Poltergeist a few towns over. Pack your stuff, we leave in an hour." Sam just glared at him from over his coffee mug.

"No thanks," he grumbled, returning to his computer. Dean in return reached across the table to slam the laptop shut, just barely missing the tip of Sam's nose.

"It's wasn't a question," He said, "now go clean up, you smell like you haven't showered in days." Sam didn't move, he just simply set his mug down and reopened the laptop. "Come on, man, she wouldn't want this. If she were to walk in here right now she would be pissed as hell. This is (Y/N) we are talking about, if she doesn't want to be found you ain't gonna find her."

His words weighed heavy on Sam because he knew his brother was right. (Y/N) was damn good at what she did. She doesn't slip up no matter how hard he wished she would. Sam slowly closed the laptop again before rising to his feet. His steps stuttered as he walked, as if he had forgotten and the movement was new to him again.

Slowly, he cleaned himself up and gathered his belongings. Which was the hardest part considering everything was still in the bedroom that (Y/N) and Sam had once shared – the one room he avoided at all costs. He pushed the door open though and kept his head down, looking only for what he needed. His go-bag was still in the corner by his side of the bed, allowing Sam to quickly grab it before abandoning the room.

Unfortunately, though, a glint of light had caught his attention before he could close the door and it spiked his curiosity. On top of the small bookshelf that sat by the door was the small silver band topped with a decent sized diamond that was bordered by a ring of smaller diamonds. It was the same ring that laid on top of the envelope (Y/N) had once left for him. On impulse, Sam picked it up and examined it before securing it in the right breast pocket of his plaid shirt. Sam then closed the door and went to join his brother in the car.

—

The first thing the boys did when they pulled into town was question the witnesses, the adult children of the victim, who had apparently seen a floating butcher's knife fly through the air across the kitchen, and land in the side of Mr. Steinmen's neck. The police said that the wife did it and that would be impressive considering she saw it happen from the dining room. She had told the authorities they didn't even have a knife like the murder weapon.

Sam and Dean sat in the car across the street from the Steinmen household, preparing their covers as federal agents. Dean was busy adjusting his tie when Sam saw the front door open and a woman with (Y/H/C) hair wearing a sharp black pantsuit cross the threshold before turning back and handing a business card to the crying witness. Before Dean realized, Sam had gotten out of the car and began following after the woman, leading Dean to chase after his brother.

She had kept her head down and walked with a purpose down the road and around the corner leading towards downtown. The boys picked up their pace and followed her to the tiny motel that was the only one within twenty miles. She unlocked the door to her assigned room and proceeded in, but instead of locking it behind her, she left it open by a hairline.

Dean expected Sam to go bounding in, but instead he watched as his little brother stood frozen in front of the door. Sam could have sworn it was her, that's why he followed, and her leaving the door open for him confirmed he wasn't crazy. So why couldn't he bring himself to walk in? What if he was wrong and this was all a mistake? Or what if it wasn't? Sam wasn't sure what he was going to find when he opened that door and it terrified him.

That's when Dean stepped up. He had no clue what was going to happen, but he had no doubt that (Y/N) was in there. So he gently pushed the door open.

—

The curtains were drawn tightly shut in front of the small window that overlooked the gravel parking lot, the only light coming through the slight crack in the door (Y/N) had left open giving her limited visibility as she quickly began to pack her few belongings. She couldn't stay here. Everything was falling apart. She saw him.

Well, she saw both of them, but seeing Sam was the hardest. She didn't have the chance to truly say goodbye to Sam. She left him a note full of lies and deceit, but no goodbye. Her goal had been to never see Sam again. No matter how much it hurt her, (Y/N) specifically told him not to look for her. Yet here he was.

She purposely left the door open knowing there was no way out of this. (Y/N) was going to either have to come up with a lie and break both of their hearts all over again or face it head on and finally tell Sam the truth. Either way, she wasn't prepared when the room became brighter and the door swung open.


	3. Don't Let Me Go

When the door opened to reveal (Y/N), Sam drank her in, taking inventory of everything about her. At first she looked just has he had remembered her, but the longer he looked the more she had changed. Some of them were minor changes, like her hair that she had cut shorter to just barely graze the angle of her jaw. Others were more drastic. For one, she had lost a lot of weight in the two months they had been apart. Before, she had a little give in her hips and thighs, enough muscle to hold her own in a fight, but enough give for Sam to cuddle up with. Where there had once been curves and slopes, were now harsh angles and divots. Her hips and shoulders were bony and sharp where the skin stretched over them and her cheekbones were more pronounced in her face. Most importantly though, she lost her glow. (Y/N) used to be able to light up a room by simply walking in. Now, she looked as drab as the dusty curtains that hung in front of the motel window, as if the life had been sucked out of her.

Sam couldn't believe it. She was a stranger to him once more. When he first saw her he had so many things he wanted to say to her, to ask her. But seeing her like this left him frozen in the threshold of the door. The air was still and tense between them, no one saying a word. Dean finally broke the silence, pulling Sam back to the world.

"Hey (Y/N/N), we gotta talk," he said, his voice low and thick with emotion. Dean had noticed everything as soon as he saw her. They were losing her faster than Dean thought and his poor brother had no clue. (Y/N) refused to look at them, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor between them, but she nodded and moved out of the way of the door. Dean led the way as he tried to take control over the spiraling situation.

The room was dark and littered with case files and half empty liquor bottles, her clothes thrown haphazardly into the suitcase that sat on her bed. "So what? You were just going to duck out and hope we didn't see you?" Dean accused. (Y/N) just shrugged before plopping down on the edge of the bed. She took a swig from the bottle of cheap bourbon that sat on the night stand next to her. Sam took a seat across from her in the small armchair, his eyes never left her face as he tried to memorize every detail about her, fearful that she might disappear again. Dean remained where he was, standing his ground.

"You can't just run away from this anymore, it's time to face the facts and tell the truth," Dean pleaded, "you gotta tell him." (Y/N) didn't move, she just continued to stare holes into the carpet. Sam looked up at Dean, questioning, but he ignored it, his full attention on his best friend and the small trash can that sat next to the bed with bloody tissues. "It's getting worse, isn't it?" his voice even softer than before. (Y/N) finally looked up and her stone mask cracked as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Her voice cracked as she finally spoke, "Dean, can you give us a minute?" He nodded before kissing the top of her head and leaving the small motel room. The tense silence from earlier returned as the couple looked at each other. (Y/N) cleared her throat before speaking again, "So, uh, what do you want to know?"

Sam breathed out a sad chuckle. "Well, everything, but we can start with the easy stuff. Where have you been?"

She laughed, "Uh, Kansas, mostly. Spent some time in Wichita, some in Lawrence. I spent about two weeks in Canada on a Rugaru hunt, but I always came back to Kansas."

Sam couldn't believe it, "So you're telling me the whole time I was looking for you, you were either right, crisscrossing our backyard, or you were in a completely different country?" They both chuckled at his comment before the lighthearted feeling was crushed by the question that hung over their heads like a sword. "(Y/N), what was that all about with Dean? What aren't you telling me? Why did you leave?"

She didn't know how to tell him, so she decided blunt was better. Don't sugar coat it, that time was long gone. "I left because I didn't want you to get hurt. You have already lost so much and I didn't want to be another person you have to mourn. I thought it would be easier if you hated me for you to let me go." He didn't understand. "I'm dying, Sam. My body is betraying me and I'm dying and it sucks." Sam sharply inhaled but he didn't interrupt her, "It created its own parasite that takes everything from me, my health, my memories, my happiness! Hell, it even took you!"

(Y/N) was on her feet now and she was angry. Angry at her body. Angry at the stupid cards she was dealt in life. Angry at the universe. Angry at herself. She wanted to curse and scream and throw things, and she was ready to, until she felt something warm on her lip. Her finger came away red. Her blood pressure must have been through the roof with her anger and now she was bleeding - again - as it always does when she goes on a tantrum.

She turned back to the table where Sam was sitting to grab a tissue and he jumped to his feet. He was starting to realize just how bad this truly was. (Y/N) pressed the tissue to her nose and he placed his hands on either side of her head in an attempt to calm her -and himself- down. The bleeding slowed before stopping all together. She wiped the last of the blood away, but neither moved from their spot. Sam scanned her face to make sure she was finally ok, he then rested his head against hers.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was trying to protect you."

Sam just chuckled at that. "You know, when I proposed to you, I was ready to say those vows right then and there. 'For better or for worse, in sickness and in health', isn't that how it goes?" Sam dug through his pocket before looping his finger around the ring he brought with him. "Before, I wanted to marry you and have kids and grow old, but now I just want to spend every second we have left together." He pushed the ring back onto her finger where it belonged, "Last time, I asked you to marry me, this time, I just want you to come home."

(Y/N) couldn't handle it. She could see the pain she caused Sam, the pain she was trying to avoid, and it crushed them both. The tears began to flow now and there was no stopping them. All she could do was nod her head as her breaths came in gasps. Sam moved them both back to the bed where she sat before. She curled into his chest as she cried and he held her closer than he ever had. He peppered her face with lingering kisses, his lips absorbing the moisture from her cheeks, until he could no longer hold his own back. Tears rolled off his face into her hair and her tears stained his shirt, but neither one cared. They simply stayed that way until they cried themselves out and fell asleep curled around each other on the small bed.


End file.
